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Chris Rodenbaugh, 17, and Doak Campbell Rapp, 16, in Speed-the-Plow at Fun House Theatre and Film (courtesy of Fun House Theatre and Film)

The bribe is shameless and quite the deal for teen theater fans with a side passion for gaming. Fun House Theatre and Film is stationing a luxury Gamervee video gaming truck at Plano Children’s Theatre to entertain patrons in between its double bill of Speed-the-Plow and True West performed by two youth casts, ages 14-17, in repertory.

The deal, offered Saturday, the final day the shows are performed, costs $10 and includes access to the Gamervee between performances.

GamerVee

GamerVee, a 30-foot long luxury mobile video gaming vehicle, will be stationed outside the company’s home at Plano Children’s Theatre. It’s been described as the truck of teen dreams, with multiple large screens, WiiU, PlayStation 3, XBox 360 and hot video game titles.

The double bill costs $10 for two hard-hitting contemporary plays about film making and the effect of fame and fortune on human nature. The shows, directed by award-winning actor and director Jeff Swearingen, contain adult language and situations suitable for ages 16 and older. For kids who want to eat as well as play, there’s a pizza place and a McDonald’s in the shopping center.

We had a wild time in the old DMN Studio for this week’s top five theater picks. Not long after I welcomed Santa to the set and asked him to talk about his show, Santa vs. the Martians (I know, all those Christmas preparations and he still finds time to star in a show!), Kimar the Martian, beamed him up to Mars. Then Matt Lyle and Jeff Swearingen, began talking about Matt Lyle’s House party at Fun House and things did indeed get fun. Check out the video to see why I picked those shows and Once at Winspear Opera House, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer at the Majestic Theater and Scrooge Puppet Theatre at NorthPark Center.

Continue the conversation on D-FW Theater on Facebook and on Twitter @nchurnin.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to throw a pie in someone’s face. Maybe you’ve always wanted to throw a pie in Jeff Swearingen’s face. In either case, you have a $5 opportunity to fling a pie at Jeff for a good cause Saturday in Plano.

It’s the closing weekend for Jeff Swearingen’s Game of Thrones, Junior, a double spoof of the popular HBO show and the juniorizing of theater for youth performers, at Fun House Theatre and Film, which performs at Plano Children’s Theatre in Plano. During intermission of the matinee, for $5 cash, you can buy a pie to throw in Jeff’s face.

The beauty of this is that it’s in keeping with the big pie fight scene in the show, so you can pie him to show him how much you love the scene or how much you hate it.

Even better, all the money from the pie-ing, bake sale and other donations will help Matt Tomlanovich, a longtime beloved Dallas director and actor, whose most recent of many accomplishments was getting the Margo Jones Theater running in Fair Park. Matt, who is married to Claudia Stephens and has two teenagers, has been in the hospital since April 3 as a result of an MRSA infection in his spinal cord, that has left him unable to use his limbs.

Matt and Claudia Tomlanovich

There’s another fundraiser for Matt, created by Erin Singleton on a Go Fund Me site, with more details:

Our dear friend Matt Tomlanovich has been in the hospital since April 3rd, 2014 as a result of a serious MRSA infection in his spinal cord. Since May 14 he has been in a facility receiving rehab and has been making good progress. Though (at the time that this is being written) there is hope that he will recover more use of his limbs, it is probable that he will be a quadriplegic.

Assistive technology for quadriplegia can run anywhere from $18,000 to $400,000 so the financial goal set for this group is a very rough estimate of the cost of getting Matt the machines he would need in order to once again be creating and working with also some additional funds considered for the practical costs incurred to his wife and two teenage sons during this difficult time.

The next fundraisers will be at the Margo Jones Theater in the Magnolia Lounge at 1121 1st Ave. in Fair Park, Dallas Aug. 20-22 at 8 p.m. nightly, with local performers donating their talent. You can make reservations at helpinghandsformatt@gmail.com. If you’re interested in performing, email erinasingleton@gmail.com. Parking is free if you say you’re headed to the Magnolia Lounge.

Jeff Swearingen believes strongly that you should expose kids to Shakespeare early. In that spirit, his Fun House Theatre and Film company is presenting an all youth, multimedia production of Hamlet, performed by kids from 10 to 15 years old, with Hamlet, Chris Rodenbaugh, all of 15. And yes, he will be using the original text, edited only for time, along with special effects lighting, an underscore and projections of classic artwork. It’s all happening at Plano Children’s Theatre. So…did he know what he was in for, working with kids on one of Shakespeare’s most challenging and tragic plays?

“It’s definitely a lot of hard work, but the kids keep pushing themselves and that’s an amazing thing to see,” he writes me. “Chris is 15 years old and he is doing a remarkable job.”

To encourage kids to come see the kids, student tickets will be $4 (adults are $8 in advance and $10 at the door) and Boy Scouts can catch the show free at the Sunday, Feb. 24 matinee (in honor of Chris Rodenbaugh being a Boy Scout). Scout leaders should make a reservation by contacting bren@funhousetheatreandfilm.com by Feb. 18 with the troop’s number and number of boys attending.

Bullying can be deadly for kids, as a rash of suicides recently in the news can attest. Silence — but the victims and by those who don’t speak up for them — can be an accessory to the crime. That’s why I am so glad to see that there are three plays on local stages that will try to get kids talking, thinking and doing something to help turn this cruel epidemic around.

I saw the stirring The Secret Life of Girls at the Dallas Children’s Theater and recommend it highly — my review should be in the Dallas Morning News Sunday. The theater will also showcase The Transition of Doodle Pequeno, a new play that explores bullying having to do with gender-identity issues. It’s part of an all day program of workshops themed “It Gets Better” that’s being offered by the Baker Idea Institute at the theater. Then, starting Feb. 23 Fun House Theatre and Film will present a look at how kids can become more resilient to bullying in The Chicken Who Wasn’t Chicken at Plano Children’s Theatre. I’ve got all the details in my Family Fun column here.

PHOTO: Zoe Kerr (left) and Alex Mutti are local teens who play the teens in The Secret Life of Girls, Linda Daugherty’s cautionary play about bullying

If you follow Dallas theater, you may know about the recent dust-up at Broken Gears Theatre Project. Having not interviewed all the parties involved, I’ll just give you the basic details: Before the scheduled June 16 performance of The Hand, a world premiere by Spanish playwright German Madrid (translated by Loren Roark), actor Joey Folsom unexpectedly left the show. It’s a 55-minute, two-man show, so that left the company in something of a fix, you might say.

Most low-budget theaters would have thrown up their metaphorical hands and said, “OK, we’re done.” Not Broken Gears. Director Andy Baldwin stepped into the role, and he and fellow actor Jeff Swearingen rehearsed their you-know-whats off, helped by producer Elias Taylorson and pinch-hitting director Robin Armstrong. A couple of shows had to be cancelled, but then The Hand, in fine theatrical tradition, went-the-expletive-ON. Hurray for them. Broken Gears, you ROCK.

I hadn’t seen the original with Folsom, but I saw Baldwin and Swearingen on Saturday night at the final performance. I don’t know either actor (I’ve seen them in a couple of shows, but I would have had to look it up to remember their faces, to be honest), and I COULD NOT TELL which one had subbed in. That’s the highest compliment I can pay, and I’m still thinking about that crazy, twisty, blow-your-mind script. If you want to follow Broken Gears in the future (and you should), visit the website.